I've had my Motu 16A for about 18 months and it's been pretty solid... until I updated to the latest driver and firmware. Now I'm experiencing the crackle that the others are having. MOTU has not been too helpful either. I don't want to roll back drivers etc but I might have to.
 
I'm still on Windows 7 64 bit.

I have a Ultralite AVB too, and lots of posts in the hardware section.
I had some problems with the 64 bit audio engine being enabled. Try disabling that?

I get pops/clicks sometimes, but they're never written in to the audio files - they're just on playback.
When I have buffers set too low, it sometimes goes haywire and gets all distorted. I just go into the browser settings and change something (buffers or safety) then change it back. SONAR handles this, and it always fixes the problem.

I'd definitely try disabling the Realtor stuff.
Also, I've had good luck working with the MOTU support guys.

gmp
Can you tell me what free software which will list what USB goes where internally? Not sure if this is what you’re asking, but I think my USB ports are in pairs, which are linked in some way. I do have lots of USB stuff plugged in – 2 dongles, wireless keyboard, backup HD, 2 printers, midi interface. My computer is 2.5 years old and is a Jim Roseberry DAW

Hi! What I used to visualize internal USB routings to USB root hubs was USB Device Tree Viewer. You might get from here or other download sites. It's free, some of the download sites that list it might be scam, though ...
 
https://www.heise.de/down...vice-tree-viewer-86404

PJH
I've had my Motu 16A for about 18 months and it's been pretty solid... until I updated to the latest driver and firmware. Now I'm experiencing the crackle that the others are having. MOTU has not been too helpful either. I don't want to roll back drivers etc but I might have to.
 
I'm still on Windows 7 64 bit.

Rolling back a driver is a piece of cake. Firmware rollback should be as simple as upgrade (yet I have not done that).
 
Since these crackling issues are popping up everywhere "out of the blue" I strongly suspect that win updates (and possibly what it does to drivers that are installed) play a role in it. I had these issues a year ago with crackles printed to audio files. Meanwhile they are gone. I had them on playback 2 months ago, but only in high load projects, probably because I disregarded the host safety buffer ... won't update anything without a system image.

That's a good idea for a system image Rob.
 
I am suspecting more and more, its WUP.  I just started getting drop outs which were a thing of the past.  Theres a post concerning this, active in the past day or so.   I could be wrong, as I am NOT system literate, unless its a mainframe - pretty good with those...   :o)
 
Take care

As many USB issues causing pops and crackles, I'm thinking seriously of getting a USB hub. When I got the computer from Jim Roseberry he had the AVB Ultralite and a USB hub, so maybe that's why he's not had as many problems. I'll get in touch with him.
 
A few months ago I was not leaving my 2T wav backup HD connected like I have been lately. So possibly disconnecting that will solve it. I'll look into the USB freeware to see what's going on also.
 
I do have tons of Acronis image files of my boot drive and may even consider going back to Jan of 2017 when I had 2017.01, which I used for about 3 or so months. It was one of the most problem free versions of Plat I've used.
 
I'll hold off on any WUPs until I hear what's going on with everyone. As of now my WUPs are from April.

jbraner
I have a Ultralite AVB too, and lots of posts in the hardware section.
I had some problems with the 64 bit audio engine being enabled. Try disabling that?

I get pops/clicks sometimes, but they're never written in to the audio files - they're just on playback.
When I have buffers set too low, it sometimes goes haywire and gets all distorted. I just go into the browser settings and change something (buffers or safety) then change it back. SONAR handles this, and it always fixes the problem.

I'd definitely try disabling the Realtor stuff.
Also, I've had good luck working with the MOTU support guys.

I unchecked the 64 bit audio engine. I hope that helps. Do you know what the 64 bit audio engine does? Currently I'm using 256 256 as the buffers

PJH
I've had my Motu 16A for about 18 months and it's been pretty solid... until I updated to the latest driver and firmware. Now I'm experiencing the crackle that the others are having. MOTU has not been too helpful either. I don't want to roll back drivers etc but I might have to.
 
I'm still on Windows 7 64 bit.

Yeah I'm wondering if the firmware update could be causing it

Hi gmp,
 

I unchecked the 64 bit audio engine. I hope that helps. Do you know what the 64 bit audio engine does? Currently I'm using 256 256 as the buffers

I would actually make the safety buffer *smaller*. It's counter-intuitive, but the safety buffer works better at 64 or less. You can even try it at 16 with that 256 setting for buffers.
It's easy enough to try out - and SONAR lets you change these things on the fly.
 

Yeah I'm wondering if the firmware update could be causing it

You can "downgrade" the firmware. Just download the file, and point the browser to your older file.
I've done it - it works just like "upgrading".
 
Also - when you change your actual drivers, go in to control panel and uninstall the old one first (I always reboot after this too). There was a point last year where they changed the name of the driver 9and the files it was using) and mine was getting confused sometimes. The support guys said to always uninstall the old one first.
You really have nothing to lose - trying different driver versions. it only takes a couple of minutes and a couple of reboots (each time).
 

I unchecked the 64 bit audio engine. I hope that helps. Do you know what the 64 bit audio engine does?

There are a million threads and discussions on this...

jbraner
Hi gmp,
 

I unchecked the 64 bit audio engine. I hope that helps. Do you know what the 64 bit audio engine does? Currently I'm using 256 256 as the buffers

I would actually make the safety buffer *smaller*. It's counter-intuitive, but the safety buffer works better at 64 or less. You can even try it at 16 with that 256 setting for buffers.
It's easy enough to try out - and SONAR lets you change these things on the fly.
 

Yeah I'm wondering if the firmware update could be causing it

You can "downgrade" the firmware. Just download the file, and point the browser to your older file.
I've done it - it works just like "upgrading".
 
Also - when you change your actual drivers, go in to control panel and uninstall the old one first (I always reboot after this too). There was a point last year where they changed the name of the driver 9and the files it was using) and mine was getting confused sometimes. The support guys said to always uninstall the old one first.
You really have nothing to lose - trying different driver versions. it only takes a couple of minutes and a couple of reboots (each time).
 

I unchecked the 64 bit audio engine. I hope that helps. Do you know what the 64 bit audio engine does?

There are a million threads and discussions on this...

Thanks for the info John. Yesterday I unchecked the 64 bit precision engine and today, I did the crackle test and it did crackle, so in my system setup it appears that the 64 bit precision engine doesn't affect this, yet maybe it will affect those momentary pops and glitches we've all gotten on playback. But for now I need to figure out the more serious crackle problem that can totally ruin a good vocal.
 
I went ahead lowered the safety buffer from 256 to 64 to see if that helps like it has you. Lowering that number does improve latency and the total round trip msec. The tech at MOTU suggested to raise those numbers. So in your system did you definitely see an improvement with lowering the safety buffer? I agree it’s counter-intuitive, yet if it works, then it works.
 
I did talk to Jim Roseberry today and he’s not really sure why I’m having the problem and felt the onboard Realtec audio shouldn’t be a problem. He said about 12 years ago that was the consensus to disable that, but as far as testing it’s worthwhile to see if disabling it does help.
 
He’s never had the crackles be written to a wav file like I have, yet he’s also had a USB powered hub. Since they only run about $15 it’s another worthwhile experiment, especially considering many have reported USB problems with MOTU products. I have 9 USB devises connected.
 
He also said that all USB external HD’s do go to sleep and there’s no way to change this and even if I’m not using it, it can interrupt the data flow, because my audio HD may wait until the USB HD wakes up before saving data. There’s no way to change this with programming the USB HD. So it’s best to have them disconnected when recording audio. So I’ll try that too. 
 
I’ll also disable Defender. He said with a DAW that you have no email or browsing, you don’t need anti-virus as long as you’re careful. I have tons of Acronis image files and am a backup fiend every night.
 
I’m still wanting to know if the current WUP is ok, since some have reported crackle problems lately.  I may decide to update everything